"At that point, I knew I was no longer self-sufficient," said Cox by cell phone from Sitka, three days after being found by a search and rescue team on Baranof Island.

The 22-year-old Fairbanks mountaineer was three days into a 14-mile hike across the Southeast island to Baranof Warm Springs when he stopped to set up camp in the rain, sleet and snow.

Soaking wet and cold after hiking all day in the 35-degree weather, Cox knew he had to get his tent up as quick as possible so he could get inside to warm up and dry out.

"At that point that's what I was trying to do," said Cox. "Stop, keep active, get the tent set up, get inside, cook some hot liquid and get dried out."

The skies were clear when Cox started his hike on Tuesday but that changed on Wednesday when rain and fog moved in. The rain turned to sleet and snow as Cox moved up the mountain on Thursday. The wind was blowing about 20 mph both days.

Visibility was only about 50 feet most of the time, forcing Cox to navigate with his compass and map instead of relying on landmarks.

It was about 3 p.m. Thursday when Cox decided to pitch his tent. Pulling it out of the stuff sack, Cox grabbed a guyline out of the heap of nylon so the tent wouldn't blow away and pounded a stake into the hard-packed snow. After hooking the guyline to the stake, Cox put the tent poles in the tent to give it its shape.

As he prepared to put a second stake in the snow, a gust of wind came up and blew the tent tight against the one attached guyline and snapped it.

"The tent did a somersault, bounced once and went up in the sky like a kite," Cox said. "It didn't tumble along the ground so I could chase it. There was nothing I could do."

It wasn't until after it happened that Cox realized what had happened. The guyline that broke had evidently rubbed against a rock in the wind where Cox camped the night before and frayed, weakening it. None of that mattered now, though.

"When that tent blew away, the first thing I said was, 'God, do you realize what you're doing? I'm going to die without that tent,"' said Cox.

An experienced climber who has scaled 20,320-foot Mount McKinley twice in the five years since he moved to Fairbanks from Colorado, Cox used a hand-held VHF radio he had picked up from the Sitka Fire Department before the trip to contact a boat in a nearby bay to get a message to the U.S. Coast Guard. The battery lasted just long enough for Cox to relay his latitude, longitude and elevation.

"I turned off my radio and I was just praying," he said.

Arranging his sleeping pad on the snow, Cox sat down with his knees up, covered his legs with his backpack cover and fired up his cook stove. It didn't necessarily warm him up but it prevented him from getting colder, said Cox, a residential contractor in Fairbanks.

To his credit, Cox was right on course, said Don Kluting, captain of the Sitka Mountain Rescue Team. When rescuers found him, Cox was talking about a river he had seen that was flowing uphill, an indication he was extremely hypothermic.

"He was very happy to see us," Kluting said.

Rescuers backtracked to set up a shelter and warmed Cox up by wrapping him in space blankets and sleeping bags. They put heat packs and warm water bottles in the sleeping bag. Other than being cold, Cox was in good shape, said Kluting.

The Coast Guard helicopter returned Friday and hoisted Cox and his rescuers into the chopper.